No matter how much bravado someone musters, when he doesn’t genuinely believe he is good, others pick up on his shifting eyes and rising voice and other giveaways. Most people can spot fake confidence from a mile away.

Like this:

“The ocean has always been a salve to my soul…the best thing for a cut or abrasion was to go swimming in salt water. Later down the road of life, I made the discovery that salt water was also good for the mental abrasions one inevitably acquires on land.” Jimmy Buffett

THE SWIMMER by Adam Lindsay Gordon (1833 – 1870)

With short, sharp, violent lights made vivid,
To southward far as the sight can roam,
Only the swirl of the surges livid,
The seas that climb and the surfs that comb.
Only the crag and the cliff to nor'ward,
And the rocks receding, and reefs flung forward,
And waifs wreck'd seaward and wasted shoreward
On shallows sheeted with flaming foam.
A grim, grey coast and a seaboard ghastly,
And shores trod seldom by feet of men --
Where the batter'd hull and the broken mast lie,
They have lain embedded these long years ten.
Love! when we wander'd here together,
Hand in hand through the sparkling weather,
From the heights and hollows of fern and heather,
God surely loved us a little then.
The skies were fairer and shores were firmer --
The blue sea over the bright sand roll'd;
Babble and prattle, and ripple and murmur,
Sheen of silver and glamour of gold --
And the sunset bath'd in the gulf to lend her
A garland of pinks and of purples tender,
A tinge of the sun-god's rosy splendour,
A tithe of his glories manifold.
Man's works are graven, cunning, and skilful
On earth, where his tabernacles are;
But the sea is wanton, the sea is wilful,
And who shall mend her and who shall mar?
Shall we carve success or record disaster
On the bosom of her heaving alabaster?
Will her purple pulse beat fainter or faster
For fallen sparrow or fallen star?
I would that with sleepy, soft embraces
The sea would fold me -- would find me rest,
In luminous shades of her secret places,
In depths where her marvels are manifest;
So the earth beneath her should not discover
My hidden couch -- nor the heaven above her --
As a strong love shielding a weary lover,
I would have her shield me with shining breast.
When light in the realms of space lay hidden,
When life was yet in the womb of time,
Ere flesh was fettered to fruits forbidden,
And souls were wedded to care and crime,
Was the course foreshaped for the future spirit --
A burden of folly, a void of merit --
That would fain the wisdom of stars inherit,
And cannot fathom the seas sublime?
Under the sea or the soil (what matter?
The sea and the soil are under the sun),
As in the former days in the latter,
The sleeping or waking is known of none.
Surely the sleeper shall not awaken
To griefs forgotten or joys forsaken,
For the price of all things given and taken,
The sum of all things done and undone.
Shall we count offences or coin excuses,
Or weigh with scales the soul of a man,
Whom a strong hand binds and a sure hand looses,
Whose light is a spark and his life a span?
The seed he sow'd or the soil he cumber'd,
The time he served or the space he slumber'd,
Will it profit a man when his days are number'd,
Or his deeds since the days of his life began?
One, glad because of the light, saith, "Shall not
The righteous Judge of all the earth do right,
For behold the sparrows on the house-tops fall not
Save as seemeth to Him good in His sight?"
And this man's joy shall have no abiding,
Through lights departing and lives dividing,
He is soon as one in the darkness hiding,
One loving darkness rather than light.
A little season of love and laughter,
Of light and life, and pleasure and pain,
And a horror of outer darkness after,
And dust returneth to dust again.
Then the lesser life shall be as the greater,
And the lover of life shall join the hater,
And the one thing cometh sooner or later,
And no one knoweth the loss or gain.
Love of my life! we had lights in season --
Hard to part from, harder to keep --
We had strength to labour and souls to reason,
And seed to scatter and fruits to reap.
Though time estranges and fate disperses,
We have had our loves and our loving mercies;
Though the gifts of the light in the end are curses,
Yet bides the gift of the darkness -- sleep!
See! girt with tempest and wing'd with thunder,
And clad with lightning and shod with sleet,
The strong winds treading the swift waves sunder
The flying rollers with frothy feet.
One gleam like a bloodshot sword-blade swims on
The sky-line, staining the green gulf crimson,
A death stroke fiercely dealt by a dim sun,
That strikes through his stormy winding-sheet.
Oh! brave white horses! you gather and gallop,
The storm sprite loosens the gusty reins;
Now the stoutest ship were the frailest shallop
In your hollow backs, or your high arch'd manes.
I would ride as never a man has ridden
In your sleepy, swirling surges hidden,
To gulfs foreshadow'd through straits forbidden,
Where no light wearies and no love wanes.

Like this:

you’d never forget the pelicans
because it was their home too
and that occasional one who’d try and swallow your baited hook
while we cast out into an endless mould of brown and blue skin
sometimes catching our line in its enormous and clumsy wingspan
floating around the jetty constantly boasting that huge gullet
so close to the pylons covered in poinson oyster shells
that waited for the bare flesh within our gait,
inviting our bare flesh to dance
Mum worried that we’d get sick from eating them
Day saying the sewage from the caravan park
would sometimes flow near where we fished
and that they oysters bathed in it too

little buckets of a few bream
silver catch of a meal
and the persistent cats at our ankles
lapping up the smell
running up past the shop
a front window necropolis of stonefish in vegemite jars
suspended in a vault of clear alcoholic brine
still deadly in death
and us in bare feet all the time
three kids in stonefish-infested mud
playing Russian roulette –
one good pair of running shoes between us

I’m the guy who parents do not trust
The one that would help a child who has fallen
A kid in danger
A child who is short five cents at the lolly shop
A child that just wanted a hug or a chat
Some kids like old men’s stories
They learn from listening to old men like me
I am not a sinister man I am just what I should be
An old man with a story
Who helps any kid?
Anytime
I am not perverted like the do gooders say
Because I spoke to their child miserably wrapped in cotton wool
I am not a paedophile
I am not a risk
Yes
I’m that old guy who must leave a child in trouble
Because some idiot says that’s the wisest thing
Pigs Arse
I will aid any kid anytime
That’s what real men do

“Class is an aura of confidence that is being sure without being cocky. Class has nothing to do with money. Class never runs scared. It is self-discipline and self-knowledge. It’s the sure-footedness that comes with having proved you can meet life. ”

“Life is what you make it. If you think you can’t change the world, then go on and follow the path already carved out for you. But there are other roads to choose, they’re just harder to trudge through. Changing the world isn’t easy, but I sure as hell am going to keep trying. Are you?”

“I don’t do romance, in the same way I don’t do heroin Russian roulette, or nude alligator wrestling. I consider all of the above self-destructive, and demeaning and these are things up with which I will not put.”
― D.D. Barant, Dying Bites

“Even from the abyss of horror in which we try to feel our way today, half-blind, our hearts distraught and shattered, I look up again and again to the ancient constellations that shone on my childhood, comforting myself with the inherited confidence that, some day, this relapse will appear only an interval in the eternal rhythm of progress onward and upward.”

“learn the art of patience. Apply discipline to your thoughts when they become anxious over the outcome of a goal. Impatience breeds anxiety, fear, discouragement and failure. Patience creates confidence, decisiveness, and a rational outlook, which eventually leads to success.”
― Brian Adams

“It was like she was MADE of cake, light and pretty and decorated on the outside-with her sweet laugh and pink streak to her hair-but it was anyone’s guess what was on the inside.”
― Sarah Addison Allen, The Girl Who Chased the Moon

“With the palms zipping past and the big sun burning down on the road ahead, I had a flash of something I hadn’t felt since my first months in Europe – a mixture of ignorance and a loose, “what the hell” kind of confidence that comes on a man when the wind picks up and he begins to move in a hard straight line toward an unknown horizon.”

“Somewhere, within her, in a deep recess, crouched discontent. She began to lose confidence in the fullness of her life, the glow began to fade from her conception of it. As the days multiplied, her need of something, something vaguely familiar, but which she could not put a name to and hold for definite examination, became almost intolerable. She went through moments of overwhelming anguish. She felt shut in, trapped.”

“He walked as he’d learned to walk, with only a minimal limp, back straight, head held high in confidence rather than cockiness. He walked like a man who had learned to lean into God for whatever strength he needed.”

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the old proverbial recovery through ancient eyes

SO SORRY ABOUT THE ADS

Just thought I would make a note that Wordpress inserts the ADS on any of us who use their site for free. I have no say in what, where or when they appear. I hope you are able to ignore them. I have my reasons for not paying for the Upgraded Sites but I know the ADS are a right pest and for that, I am sorry.

SILVERBIRD 3: THE SILVER BIRD 3

PADDING OUT MODERN RECOVERY BY USING OLDER AND WISER HEADS.

The images are drawn primarily from my life on the Northern Rivers of NSW, AUSTRALIA with some family input from Other Places and Graphics chosen randomly.
The Wisdoms are collected from all manner of places and include a range of Australian Poetry. Take your Time. Reflect on the Images and the Words. They might be saying more to you than you at first realise.

IZZY FOREAL 18 APRIL 1949 TO 21 JUNE 2014

The man I loved ran into the Forest one morning and never came home. He died beside the Bush Track he loved in Bongil Bongil from a heart attack.
Now for the Old Proverbial Recovery.
LET 'ER RIP, IZZY. LET 'ER RIP.

NEWS OF BOB EARLE

Marc
4/18/2015 — Yes.. I found him. Well. Kind of. News of him anyways. He’s living in Nevada and from what I understand he has suffered some seriously declining health in the past few months. I talked to a friend of his who is in regular contact with him who said he’s in and out of the hospital. I am going to get an address of his friend that I can send a message to Bobby thanking him for all he’s given us/me. I will not post that address. However if people want to send me their note of gratitude I will gladly include it with mine — it in one big envelop to send. Time is of the essence as I will probably send my letter within a couple weeks of the posted date above.
OPR - I will get an address for Marc. Until then, you can post a comment on the page. BOB EARLE